IRL: Dan Wheldon Fontana Saturday notes

Dan Wheldon qualifies fourth for Californian race

The 25-year old Englishman put the Klein Tools / Jim Beam Dallara /Honda / Firestone on the outside of the second row after qualifying at a speed of 225.695 mph.

Wheldon and the Klein Tools / Jim Beam team have been quick all weekend and the speed carried into yesterday's qualifying session where he earned his best starting spot of the year.

Helio Castroneves took the MBNA pole with a speed of 226.757 mph. Kenny Brack was second quickest at 226.280mph. Scott Dixon will start inside of Wheldon after qualifying at 226.219 mph. Wheldon's team-mate Tony Kanaan will start fifth with a speed of 225.198 mph.

The green flag will fly at 3.30pm EDT today with live coverage on ABC Sports. In the UK, the race will be shown live on Sky Sports 3 at 7.30pm and edited highlights will be screened on Five early on Thursday morning at 3.30am.

After qualifying, Dan Wheldon commented: 'I think that was a good lap. The Klein Tools / Jim Beam team has been working hard and so has Honda and we've both been improving as the year progresses. I'd say we're happy; it certainly is nice to be at the sharper end of the field. I think we will be competitive in the race.'

Tony Cotman, Klein Tools/Jim Beam, Team Manager, said: 'We had a pretty good car in qualifying and we're happy with our top-five starting position. It is going to be go o d to start up front because I think it is going to be difficult to pass. We worked on our race set-up in the warm-up, so we should be pretty good.'

-www.danwheldon.com